ile pronouncing his rapid
decision, and took up the next case.

Among the lethargic flock who went away with bowed heads, some, to rally
their spirits, mumbled the flesh of their babies with fierce kisses as
if to take revenge and show that this man after all had done them
harm....

* * * * *

I got up, dragging my double weight.

So this is the maternal infatuation which is so sanctified and revered.
"I don't know.--I don't know.--I don't know." And I presumptuously was
going to commit the same folly, I, who knew no better than they, who had
not learned the unknown love awaiting me....

Why doesn't that man, the doctor, who _knows_, arise and snatch away
these lives contaminated by the fond ignorance of the mothers, and
proclaim that the instinct is fallible, fatal, even criminal?

* * * * *

Most of the women met me again under the porte-cochere, because I walked
with difficulty. The one with the drowned-corpse face gave me a friendly
little nod.

"You will see," her nod said, "it will soon be your turn...."

Yes, I know.... To be a mother.... In return for the gift of life, to
have the right of death over one's child. And to use that right.

XIII

A rending, moments repeated incessantly, torture indescribable, pain
embedded in the body, battle, cruel cries....

I remember everything and every second. I remember the seconds when I
gnawed at my bedclothes, when I howled like a wild beast. I remember all
of them and others. I remember that none of them was ever the last, how
the hours added themselves to the seconds in an excruciating, inhuman
succession of throes in which my whole being set furiously upon itself,
how I no longer had the strength to suffer.

I twisted my head from side to side like a dying animal in entreaty; I
stifled it in the pillows; it was wet with perspiration; I felt a new
convulsion begin and break like a wave. And when an infernal force tore
me with a pang greater than all the others, I heard vaguely a cry that
was no longer mine, a film passed over my pupils, I sank into an abyss
sunlit and sultry. It was over ... it was over ... I fell asleep.

* * * * *

Did I remain in that state of lethargy and inertia for long? When I
opened my eyes the whiteness and blankness of the walls of my room
seemed to be released by a spring. About me was a startling silence
peopled with sibilant whis